A Different Kind of Friendship
by RikaFurude13
Summary: During a rather violent battle, Steve is gravely injured and faces death in the woods, apart from the team. He is found by a mysterious Japanese boy in the woods, who saves him from the brink of death and brings him to Whammy's House. Steve finds that these genius children are in dire need of a different kind of friendship, and he and the Avengers willingly provide it.
1. Chapter 1

AN: . . . Has anything like this been done before? I hope not because if there has, I didn't find it yet :( So I decided to make my own! I always wondered what would happen if the Avengers and Whammy's kids met each other. . . I'd imagine lots of sh-crap and mischief would happen muahahahaha! For all of you Loki-lovers (comme moi) he'll probably end up being in the story. I love him too much to exclude him! ^^ I should be working on my Death NoteXOuran High School etc crossover, but I've wanted to write something for the Avengers for a while now, so here it is! I'm not one of those people who say 'I won't update another chapter unless I get X number of reviews', but I will say for one time only that reviews are very much appreciated, and because this story was an 'on-a-whim' idea, I'll probably need a bit of help concerning plot and things like that, so feel free to give me any ideas you want! Hope you enjoy this chapter, I think it's the longest single chapter I've ever written for any fanfiction, so YAY for that!

* * *

Steve Rogers breathed heavily, sweat forming on his forehead as he wearily looked out onto the ravaged battleground that was New York City; more specifically, Central Park. Debris from various crushed buildings littered the ground so heavily that grassy patches were few and far between. Half of the zoo was destroyed; Clint and Natasha were doing their best to control the animals before they hurt anybody. Luckily, nothing seriously dangerous was able to escape from the zoo, and zoo officials had abandoned the migration into the subways to aid Clint and Natasha as they tried to remedy the problem.

The offender's name was Suklos, and he was one of the Chitauri. Steve did not know why or how Suklos was able to get to Earth, but he did, and now he was making a huge mess. When Fury had first contacted them with news of the attacker, Tony seriously thought the Director was joking; it had only been a year since Loki's attack with his Chitauri alien force, but Thor had assured them that he was still in Asgard, and had no way to get back to Earth. Even so, Tony had forced Thor to check with Heimdall again, just to make sure, but the results were the same.

So here the Avengers were. Fighting a giant alien army with General Suklos at its head, and they had no idea what exactly was going on except that Loki was probably not behind it and that these guys were definitely making them run for their money. Surprisingly enough, even Bruce and Thor were beginning to grow tired, and Steve was no exception. They had been fighting straight on for the past six hours or so without a break, and the Chitauri just kept coming. Tony had attempted the same as he did last time, trying to stop the portal from outside the Earth's atmosphere, but the problem was that the hole the portal made was so small that only one Chitauri could enter at a time, and they all came in a row, making it so Tony had no possible way to get out to destroy the portal. At the same time, perhaps the smaller portal size was a good thing, because now there were no flying whale-transformer-seal things to defeat.

"Steve! Come on!" yelled Tony from the side of the helicopter, holding his hand out. Steve hoisted himself in with a groan, feeling the most achy he had ever felt in a long time.

"You okay, buddy?" Tony slapped Steve on the back lightly and Steve nodded, noticing that Tony was also short of breath. Figures, since the suit is probably getting a little hot after fighting so long.

"How are we supposed to stop this?" Steve asked.

"I don't know. With every one we kill, ten more take its place. You'd think they would have emptied out Chitauri-land, or whatever the hell it is, by now."

"How are Bruce and Thor doing?"

"The Hulk's taken a few bad hits, but no matter how mad he gets, there's just too many. Thor seems to be lightning'd out," answered Tony. "Clint's probably going to end up running out of arrows before this is over and Clint NEVER RUNS OUT OF ARROWS." It was clear that even behind the mask, Tony was very close to panicking, and it drove Steve to think about the situation and ways to remedy it.

"I think... if we find out where the portal is coming from, we can probably just try to destroy it from the ground and it'll immediately suck out all of the Chitauri, wouldn't it?"

Tony nodded. "In theory, that's how it would work, but we don't even know where the damn thing is... and even if we did, it's probably impossible to just _break_. What I want to know is how the hell this thing was even made. There's no place on Earth were somebody could get away with building a portal to summon a huge alien army."

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly there was a flash of bright red light that temporarily blinded him for a few moments. There were inhuman screams, not of pain, but of protest, and Steve slowly blinked as his eyesight returned, and found that the surrounding world was swathed in an eerie red light. He looked closer and found that the Chitauri were forcibly being pulled from the ground to the sky, where the minutely small hole was now huge enough to accommodate the aliens inundating through it in waves.

Tony looked at Steve questioningly. "Looks like someone destroyed the portal. But I want to make sure. Stay here, I'll be right back," Tony said before flying out of the helicopter towards the now larger hole. Steve waited as Ironman did his best to annihilate as much of the portal as he could; he didn't have the Tesseract or anything to completely vanquish the portal, but he knew he could do as much damage as possible before he got himself blown up.

Impossibly large numbers of Chitauri were now flying up towards the sky at an even swifter pace, so fast that the pilot of the helicopter was not able to get out of the way in time for a small group of the aliens to collide with the aircraft. Steve bit back a shriek as their claws and teeth and generally sharp scales ripped through his arms and torso, causing painfully deep cuts to form as he fell from the helicopter, immobilized, partially by pain and partially by the trees and stray Chitauri bodies hurtling up towards him.

After what seemed like forever, Steve finally hit the ground, hard, deeper in the woods than he would have anticipated, his shield falling from his hand a few feet away. Steve hadn't felt pain like the kind he felt right now in so long, it was almost sweet. As much as he willed his body to move, it just wouldn't budge, to his dismay. He knew that with his serum-enhanced body, it would take him only a short while to recover, provided that he survived that long this deep in the woods.

And it seemed as though fate didn't want to be kind to him today, he thought, as he noted the glowing, feral eyes of the canines that had appeared and begun to circle around him, their mouths dripping with saliva. Steve felt the panic, but his body didn't seem to feel the same, because it didn't move and Steve could feel himself slipping into the realms of unconsciousness.

The last thing he saw was one of the beasts lunging for his throat.

* * *

"CAPTAIN OF AMERICA!" Thor's booming voice yelled, the volume so substantial that it could probably be heard in Switzerland.

"Spangles!" Tony yelled, followed by a chorus of 'Steve's and 'Captain's from the rest of the team, including several employees of S.H.I.E.L.D., who were also in the helicopter, the same one Steve had fell from.

After Steve's accident, the helicopter had swerved off course, so the team had no way of finding out where exactly Steve had slipped.

"Maybe he just went to help with the zoo or to tell the people underground that it's safe to come back out," Natasha said, hoping fervently that they were making a big deal out of nothing, and that Steve was actually good and well.

"Yeah," Clint agreed. "You know how much the Captain likes animals. He probably went to converse with the bear cubs or zebras or whatever. Or he's trying to get back to us, but is smothered by an onslaught of children wanting his autographs and pictures and stuff."

Tony wasn't appeased. He turned to the pilot again. "Are you _sure _that you didn't see where he went?"

The pilot nodded for the umpteenth time. "I'm sure, Mr. Stark."

Tony sighed and put his head in his metal-clad hands.

"Hey, don't worry about him," Clint said, patting Tony's shoulder. "Knowing him, he's probably already back at Avengers tower waiting to scold us for being late and waking up half of New York."

Natasha smiled and Tony forced one on his face. His friends were probably right... but he still got the feeling that something was wrong with Steve.

* * *

Wild growls had woken Light out of his reverie. He was sitting on the bank of a stream, deep in the woods, enjoying the chilly afternoon air, unaware of the alien battle that had just been waged in the city. It was his favorite place to be when he was alone, and he amused himself by creating pastel drawings of the nature around him. Usually, he hated to feel little, but when faced with the mighty power of nature, Light didn't mind being unimportant and insignificant once in a while.

Once he heard the telltale noises of coyotes waiting to attack their next meal, he had scrambled up and immediately ran to the source of the noise. He figured that they were just attacking some deer, and if they were, he wouldn't interfere. Such was the circle of life, anyway.

But when Light ascended the slope and saw the unkempt animals, he held back a gasp as he saw what they were attacking: an unconscious man! Light hurried down the slope and made a lot of noise, startling the coyotes, and distracting them from their original prey as they turned to him.

Once the coyotes deduced that he was not a threat, they growled and started to slink towards him, sharp teeth bared. Light stepped back a couple of steps, finally realizing that he couldn't fight off a pack of five of these animals, and once they had their fill of him, they would just turn back to the unconscious man.

The best Light could do was get them as far away from the man as he could, so once they were done attacking Light, they would have long forgotten about him. So Light ran, as fast as he could. He heard the leader give out a yelp and then the thundering of twenty paws unceremoniously hitting the foliage of the ground. Light had spent ample time in these woods, and knew his way around well enough to not get tripped up by a surprising stick or hole.

The coyotes began to run up ahead of Light to try and block him in a circle of them, so Light took a desperate turn, dismayed to see that he had gained very little ground and that they had almost caught up with him. His turn took him into unfamiliar territory, and Light knew that it would only be a matter of seconds before the coyotes caught him and he would be their food. He was breathing harshly already and the glycogen made lactic acid as a byproduct and the chemical began running through his muscles, making them burn.

Light fought back a yelp and ran backwards a few steps as a deep chasm with running water and sharp rocks loomed up before him. He was able to catch himself before falling over the edge, but, unfortunately, the coyotes were not able to accomplish the same feat. All five of the canines ran over the edge, and they whimpered as they realized their mistake and impending death. Light was gasping and he fell to his hands and knees on the ground, looking away from the chasm as the five bodies hit the sharp rocks below.

After a few moments of rest Light stood up shakily and began to walk back the way he came. He cursed his physically weak body; he was much too thin, just skin and bones, partially because he never had a reason to exercise much, being alone a lot, and partially because he skipped too many meals to be healthy. He sped up his pace, in case the man was attacked again.

Finally, Light made it back into the clearing where the man was, who was still unconscious. Now that he wasn't being attacked by coyotes, Light was able to get a good look at him. He was bleeding from excessive scratches, but they seemed to be older than the scratches around the man's neck, the ones from the coyotes. Light ran over and took off his jacket, not caring about the chill, and wrapped it around the man's neck to try and slow the bleeding.

Light noticed that the man was wearing all red, white and blue, sort of like the American flag, and a shield was laying a few feet away from him with the same colors adorning it. Light felt a pang of recognition, as if he should definitely know this man from somewhere, but he was too tired to put much thought to it. He tried to pick the man up, which was hard because Light wasn't strong and the man was heavier than an average textbook.

He half-carried, half-dragged the man through the woods, away from the bustling-and ruined- New York City, and to the outskirts of the city, to a neighborhood that wasn't particularly acclaimed for its cleanliness and polite inhabitants.

It took a good forty-five minutes to get back to the institution, because Light got tired easily and had to take a couple of breaks, and it seemed as though the man got heavier with each step. Nevertheless, Light made it back to his 'home', if that was really what it was referred to as. He looked up at the sign over the front door of the plain, but ostentatiously large building: Whammy's House.

Steve let out a groan as his eyes cracked open. The light was blinding, and he had to immediately close them again, not expecting the brightness. After blinking a few times to get accustomed to the light, he looked around at his surroundings. He was lying on a beige couch that looked cheap but was really comfortable. The room was not very fancy; it was large and had a warm homey brown color that made it seem incredibly mature and warm. The couch was to the south wall, and the door was on the wall adjacent to the left of Steve, such that he could only make out the doorknob and perhaps a quarter of the door itself. A plain twin-sized bed with mahogany bedspread was in the far corner away from Steve, and a desk was in the corner opposite to the bed. A large bookshelf with various tomes was placed on the wall across from the couch, and the hard wood floor had a large brown and cream rug in the center. There was a closet door and a window. All in all, it was a very comforting room to wake up in, despite the harsh artificial light from the ceiling fan above him.

Steve looked down at himself, inspecting his injuries, glad that his body would move again, even though it ached. The deep cuts in his arms and torso that were caused by the Chitauri were already healing; they had reduced to angry red gashes that had stopped bleeding. He noticed a plain brown jacket wrapped around his throat and he pulled it off, wincing at the fabric threads pulling at the sticky blood that remained there. The jacket was bloodstained, and Steve was surprised that he had bled this much... he didn't even know where the scratches on his throat had come from...

Oh, right. The coyotes.

Why wasn't he dead? The canines had looked positively ravenous just as he passed out. He figured out that whoever had brought him to this room was the one that saved him from the animals. Now, if only that fellow would show himself so he could give thanks and stop intruding on his hospitality...

As if on cue, the door opened and Steve jumped, blinking as a scrawny boy stepped inside of the room. Steve tried to sit up, looking at the boy in curiosity. He couldn't have been much older than fourteen or so. He was dressed in slacks and a casual grey shirt that hung loosely off of his thin frame, and he was holding a first aid kit in long, piano-player fingers. His hair was honey-brown and hung to his chin, and his almond-shaped auburn eyes widened as he rushed over to gently push Steve back down on the couch.

"Stay, you are hurt," he commanded softly, looking at Steve seriously. Steve could detect the faint Oriental accent-Chinese, or maybe Japanese?-laced in the contours of his speech, but Steve could also tell, without a doubt, that English was this boy's first language.

Steve watched without a sound as the boy cleaned his wounds and began wrapping gauze bandage around his arms and his neck. Steve winced as he worked on his throat, the scratches still raw, but concentrated instead on the boy's slightly shaking fingers, his skin tanned but also possessing a strange ashen quality to them that only told Steve that his savior wasn't as healthy as he should be.

"What is your name? And where am I?" Steve asked quietly, looking up into the boy's eyes. "I'm Steve Rogers."

A flash of recognition flitted across the boy's eyes before he answered. "My name is Light. And you are at Whammy's House."

* * *

PS: I made Light a Whammy's boy because: 1. I love that idea, and I've got some ideas concerning him... muahaha... and 2. I think he'd fit in pretty well at Whammy's, and 3. I LOVE LIGHT! A lot of people say he's a fop and a douche-bag and stuff, and I respect their opinions, because I like L too. But Light is still my favorite, second to none but Beyond Birthday *winkwink* I guess I just love all the villains, huh? First Light, then BB, and then Loki. I LOVE LOKI. Okay, I'll stop rambling, hoped you like the idea so far!


	2. Chapter 2

Steve hissed between his teeth as Light pressed in on his wounds one last time so they would be prevented from bleeding any further. "Whammy's House?" he inquired after the sudden jolt of pain had subsided. He looked directly into the mocha-brown of his saviour's eyes. "What's that?"

"It's an orphanage," Light answered quietly.

"Oh," Steve said, looking away in pity, but not before missing the faint flash of resentment in Light's eyes.

"I don't need pity from you. It's fine."

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry," said Steve sincerely, looking back at Light as he put away the dressings. He turned to the end table and gingerly picked up a bowl of soup Steve had not noticed before.

"You must eat."

"Oh, you don't need to waste your hospitality any more on me," said Steve nervously, struggling to sit himself back up again.

"No, no," chided Light gently, as if he were talking to a restless toddler, pushing Steve back down again. "It is no trouble. Nothing happens around here anyway, so it's a good thing for me to have something to do other than read." He smiled at Steve to further emphasize the fact that he was grateful for the unusual diversion.

Steve thought about protesting again, but decided that if he truly wasn't an inconvenience for the scrawny boy, then it couldn't hurt to stay a while.

He reached out his hands for the bowl, assuring to Light that he was strong enough to feed himself- which he was, since he could feel his nasty wounds already healing with a slight prickling of his skin, like needles- and Light placed the bowl in his hands, turning to leave so Steve could eat in peace.

"If you need anything, then just cry out," Light said in farewell as he left the room.

Steve looked into the bowl. It was vegetable soup, the kind that had noodles shaped like the letters of the alphabet. He smiled, remembering his first time eating this type of soup. He knew that it had existed in the thirties and forties, but hadn't had any until after the first Chitauri war, with the Avengers.

"_Here you go, Cap," said Tony jovially as he handed Steve a bowl of soup, holding a glass of scotch in his other hand. "Warm soup is always good for those cold winter days."_

_Steve nodded politely as he looked down into the bowl. He had chanced upon Tony in the coffee shop the other day, and Tony had talked nostalgically about the time a year ago when the band of misfits had gotten together to defeat the rather formidable force that was Loki. Tony then had an idea to bring everyone back together and they could all play poker or truth-or-dare, for old time's sake. Steve had agreed and presently helped Tony contact the rest of the Avengers, who had hurried down._

_And now Steve was sitting at a table in Stark Tower, with the other Avengers-even including Thor- eating soup because Tony had nothing else but Poptarts and pancake mix, and after three days of nothing but those foods, he was definitely ready for something more savory._

_He observed the soup closer, holding his spoon up in surprise. _

"_Um... Tony, why are there letters floating around in it?" he asked._

"_That's alphabet soup."_

"_Oh!" Steve had looked incredulously up at the scruffy genius. "I've heard of that."_

"_Yeah. Try making a word! It's always fun," Clint smiled goofily from across the table at him._

_Steve smiled also and used his spoon to try making a word. After about ten minutes of searching and arranging and several mentally uttered curse words, Steve had finally made one. He pointed to his bowl proudly to show everybody the word he had made. _

"_'Friends'?" Tony asked, and as everybody heard the word he had made being spoken aloud, there grew a tender atmosphere in the room; even Bruce looked up from his newspaper and smiled._

_Tony stared into space for a few minutes before catching himself and giving a smirk to Steve. _

"_Goodness, Cap, you really go for corny, don't you?" he said jokingly and Steve smiled sheepishly. Tony patted him on the back good-naturedly and Steve chuckled, starting to eat his soup._

_It was only a week later that the Chitauri would decide to attack again._

Steve smiled to himself at the memory, and he eagerly picked up his spoon to attempt to make another word. As soon as he began, he discovered that the noodles were easier to manipulate than last time, but he was only able to find eight letters: A, N, S, W, E, K, S, E; as opposed to the last time, when he had a few dozen at his disposal.

Steve knew what he was doing was incredibly childish, but he felt as if the incessant responsibilities put on him as the head of the Avengers warranted a few moments of childish glee; something he inwardly thanked the mysterious Light for, again.

He continued his work, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not put the letters together to make a word with meaning. In a slight frustration, he stirred the soup viciously with his spoon and closed his eyes. After a few moments, he opened them again and looked down, his expression turning into one of astonishment as he realized that his angry stirring had arranged the letters just so into a word that made him slightly uncomfortable. All eight letters were used. The word spelled was WEAKNESS.

Steve chastised himself for the strange feeling he got when he read the word, and he began eating his soup, which had turned cold during his play, much to his dismay.

He finished the soup and put the empty bowl on the end table, and felt himself fall into slumber again, and he gladly welcomed it, if only to get his mind off of things like friends, when he knew they were probably going mad looking for him.

"Tony, I think we should just give up and let Steve come back on his own," Natasha said nervously, after another half-hour of hearing Tony yell into his cell phone at the police. "Law enforcement officers haven't done anything wrong. Well, this time, at least."

Tony sighed and hung up on the poor policeman, who had only started working a week ago and wasn't ready for this type of verbal abuse.

"I have this feeling, Nat. A feeling that he's not doing as well as all of you want to delude yourselves into thinking."

"Still, it's not healthy for you to be this worried. We have S.H.I.E.L.D agents scattered around the city looking for him. It's only a matter of time before he's found."

Tony snorted sardonically. "I don't trust those agents s far as I can throw them. And, without my suit, that's not that far. They're all amateurs."

"Have a little faith, Tony. They're doing the best they can," Clint said. "The best we can do is get some rest and, if he isn't back by then, we'll go out looking for him ourselves."

Tony was about to retort when JARVIS cut in. "Sir, there are two young boys at the entrance."

"Turn them away," said Tony impatiently, not ready to deal with any charity at the moment.

"They are rather insistent."

"I don't care. Turn them away," Tony repeated, downing another glass of scotch.

"Yes, sir. I will do so-" JARVIS fell silent and Tony looked up in confusion.

"Jarvis?"

The door to the main room opened and two young boys entered, dragging a wheelbarrow with a giant cloth bag filled with God-knows-what behind them. The Avengers looked at them in surprise, and Tony blinked.

The blonde one, who was about ten years of age, was looking indignantly at a redhead, who looked to be the same age. The blonde was still speaking to the other as if they had not just walked into the room with a bunch of superheros occupying it.

"The only advantage of video games is that when you die, you just lose a little pink heart and keep on playing. Other than that, I stand by my position that doing things for real is much better than doing them in a game."

The redhead frowned. "But you can do things in video games that you can't do in real life! And they are entirely different worlds."

Tony finally got over his surprise and stepped forward. "Who are you two?"

"I'm Matt!" the redhead lifted his goggles and smiled hugely, which, in turn, made everyone but Tony and Bruce (who was too engrossed in his book to know that they had guests) smile also. "And that's Mello."

Mello frowned contemplatively, a look that most children did not possess.

"Okay..." Tony said. "And how did you two get in here? I gave specific orders to my A.I to-"

"Wow, you have an A.I.?" Matt asked excitedly. "That's cool!"

"Yeah... um... his name is JARVIS..." Tony answered, unsure about how to continue the conversation.

"Oh... so _that's _what I disabled? See, and Mello said it was just a fancy butler name for a cheap home security system!"

"You did _what_?" Tony snapped, angry but also impressed. "Do you realize how difficult it would have been to get into the system to turn him off? How did you pull it off? You both are probably five years old!"

"Eleven! Thank you very much!" Mello snapped back with such ferocity that Tony was taken aback.

"I'm sorry! I don't spend a lot of time with whiny kids!" Tony retorted, overcoming his initial shock.

"Well then! I guess you aren't going to get any pretzels then!" Mello said angrily. "So be nice to me before I take a pretzel and stuff it down your throat so you asphyxiate to death!"

"Ah, Mello," laughed Matt nervously, "I thought we established that threatening people is not an efficient market technique."

"To hell with business, this has gotten personal!"

Matt sighed and smiled cordially. "Would you like some pretzels? They are only a dollar a bag." Matt took out a small snack-sized bag of pretzels from the cloth sack in the wheelbarrow.

"That sounds delightful," Natasha said politely, glad that the conversation had steered away from the near-violent.

"Whoa, no, no, no," Tony said, holding his hands up. "I'm not going to let anyone buy pretzels from a person who is so incorrigibly rude."

Matt quickly covered Mello's mouth to mask his indignant retort, receiving a not-so-friendly elbow to the gut in the process. "But, sir, we need the money."

"For what?"

"A new bench outside the orphanage. It got mysteriously destroyed a few years ago and it used to be very useful but now there's a few kids who have to sit on the cold, hard ground because we only have five benches instead of six," Matt said, effectively adding a hint of pathos to his argument, the mark of a true salesman.

"Tony, come on. We can't deny funds to an _orphanage,_" Clint said, completely drawn in by Matt's argument.

Tony frowned for a moment, and then sighed. "Fine. But there's something I want first."

"Name it," Matt said as he continued to muffle Mello's protests.

"I want you to look at a picture of somebody first and tell me if you've seen him," Tony said, fishing in a stack of papers until he found a picture of Steve. "Here we are." He showed it to Matt and Mello and Matt let Mello go.

"I've seen that guy before!" Matt said. "Like, a year ago! He was carrying a hammer!"

Thor looked uncomfortable and Tony wanted to face-palm.

"No, you idiot! He's looking for the guy with the shield," Mello corrected, and for once Tony was glad he had argued.

"Oh. Then, nope. Haven't seen him," Matt corrected himself. "Is he lost?"

"In a way, yes," Tony said, not masking the concern in his voice. Matt frowned, hating to have let him down like that.

"Well... you never know... sometimes Light can drag in some pretty weird people. Remember that hobo he brought in last month, Mello? Mello?" Matt stared at Mello as a look of realization spread on his face.

"Oh, my God. You know what? Light was dragging someone in yesterday. I remember seeing him and asking him if it was another cat and Light gave me that serious look before going to his room," said Mello. "I couldn't get a good look at the guy, so it's probably not Shield-Man, but it's worth a try."

Tony gasped in relief. "Where do you two live, then?"

Mello gave him a look of disgust. "I'm not telling you that! How do I know you aren't a stalker?"

Tony looked at Matt questioningly. Matt shrugged. "I'm with Mello on this one. Not safe."

Tony sighed. "Fine. Well, you gave me information and I promise to uphold my end of the deal. But there is _no way _I'm paying a dollar for a measly bag of pretzels."

"But it's Rold Gold! It's quality!" Matt showed him the pretzels.

"I can get the same for fifty cents at the drugstore. Same 'quality' and everything," Tony gave a hard look. "I'll pay fifty cents."

"Ninety-five," Mello said, his glee at the chance to barter unmasked.

"Fifty-five."

"Ninety."

"Sixty."

"Ninety."

"Fifty-five," Tony looked smug, knowing that Mello couldn't go on much further.

Mello frowned. "You will pay ninety."

Tony sighed. "Sixty?"

"Ninety."

"Sixty-five. That's my last offer. I'll buy ten bags, so that will be $6.50."

"No, you'll pay ninety," Mello said.

Tony frowned. "You aren't budging, are you?"

"Nope."

"Well, then," Tony said, drinking a sip of alcohol. "Deal's off."

"Eighty-nine!" Matt said, desperate to save the sale.

Tony smiled. "Sold."

"Matt!" Mello scolded. "You lost us a dime. A DIME. How can you live with yourself?"

"You can't be stubborn about everything, Mels," Matt said as he gave the pretzels to Tony and Tony gave him a fifty-dollar bill.

"Keep the change," Tony said with a smile.

Matt was about to argue, but decided against it. "Let's go, Mello!" He left the room as Mello followed, still grumbling and looking absolutely comical pulling the wheelbarrow. Tony threw pretzel bags at everyone and Natasha smiled.

"See, you aren't completely heartless, Tony," she observed.

Tony shrugged. "I know."

"Sir, the two children have left the building," JARVIS' voice rang out through the building.

"Jarvis! You're back! Remind me to beef up your security later."

"Yes, sir."

Tony turned to address the whole team. "Alright. What we're going to do is figure out which orphanage our pretzel friends belong to."

"After we eat our pretzels, right?" Clint asked.

Tony thought for a moment. "I guess so. Hurry up everybody. JARVIS, get me a list of every orphanage in the city. Wait, no. Just the orphanages that have benches near them."

"Yes, sir."

Natasha frowned. "Was it just me, or did those children seem to be a little smarter than the average eleven-year old?"

Bruce nodded. "Some children are born smart. These kids are probably part of that group. They are really interesting."

Tony pouted. "I just wanna know how that smooth-talker was able to disable JARVIS."

Clint laughed. "We'll find out soon, I'm sure."

And in the background, Thor was happily devouring his pretzels.

* * *

AN: Thor thinks pretzels are very yummy. I was originally going to have Matt and Mello sell Poptarts, but I wanted to stray from the status quo. Woo!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Welcome to the next installment. Sorry for any story followers out there- I haven't updated in a while. I tried my hand at symbolism in this chapter, I can say that this is one of the most elaborate things I have written in a while just in terms of diction and imagery. I hope you like it!

* * *

Steve's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he was confused as to where he was, but suddenly he remembered. _Whammy's House_, he thought. _With the strange alphabet soup and the rather soft-spoken boy who reminds me of myself..._. He fought to sit up, finding it much easier to manage than before. He pressed his right hand lightly against his bandages, gleeful when he discovered that there was only a dull ache remaining where searing pain had once been. He put his socked feet onto the ground firmly and stood up, holding onto the arm of the couch to steady himself.

The room was smaller than he thought it was lying down. Most of the room was taken up by the bookshelf. Steve walked over to it and examined the books, running his fingers across the spines. He recognized a lot of them, and they were classics such as _Of Mice and Men, The Canterbury Tales, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, Fahrenheit 451, _and _1984_. The child he was saved by couldn't have been much older than ten... yet he read this sort of material?

Then again, Steve was born more than 70 years ago... maybe children were just this smart nowadays. But he doubted it. There was a sort of mature air surrounding Light that he rarely saw in children anywhere. Light was caring... but it also seemed like he was empty.

A light sound broke through the cloud of Steve's thoughts and he turned towards the door to Light's room, which was slightly ajar. He make his way over to the entrance, and identified the noise as piano music. It was soft and entrancing, and Steve appreciated the music for a few moments before opening the door to see who was playing.

He looked out into a dark hallway. The hallway was much colder and not as welcoming as Light's bedroom. It was painted a generic white with black door trims. Doors much like Light's lined the hallway, save for an arch a few meters down his left, leaving an opening into another room. The room that the music was coming from.

Steve made his way down the hallway, his feet making only the slightest of noises. He peered around the wall into the arched room and gasped lightly at the large, ornate library. Endless amounts of books lined the shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling. And to his left was Light, sitting at an old upright piano, playing calmly from a tattered, yellowing music book on the stand in front of him.

Light didn't stop playing, but Steve knew he was aware of his presence by the slight pause in the music, like a record skip. Steve ventured into the room further. It seemed like a marvelous place to read. The room was lit minimally, not by electricity, but by candlelight, which seemed dangerous to Steve, but they were placed in eaves along the wall, well away from the books and paper. The smell of the library was slightly dusty, as if it wasn't used often, but it also smelled faintly of pine and old paper. It made Steve relax.

Steve didn't disturb Light, who looked calm playing the piano, and let the music cloak him as he instead maneuvered through the tall shelves, looking at the books. It seemed as though there were tomes on every subject in the world, and he noticed that the books were in various languages; some were even in Latin. He was surprised at the extensive collection the orphanage was blessed with.

He turned around a bookcase and almost tripped on a pile of books reaching about a meter tall. He looked down at the boy beside the tall pile of books. The boy was wearing glasses that were taped about the middle, and he was so engrossed in the book he was currently reading (it was in Spanish, Steve noted) that he didn't notice Steve's presence until a few moments after he had been standing there.

The green eyes of the bespectacled boy were both confused and surprised. "H-hello," he said nervously, in a quiet voice.

"Hello," Steve said politely, sitting down next to him. "What are you reading?"

"_Don Quixote_," answered the boy, his eyes brightening with the prospect of discussing books with the man. "It is regarded as one of the best works of literature ever written in the Spanish language."

"I'm guessing you know Spanish?" Steve asked, impressed.

"Yes. I know English, Spanish and German," the boy answered. "I'm learning French."

"That's impressive. How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

Steve smiled appreciatively. "My name is Steve Rogers. What's yours?"

"_Je m'appelle _Jared," he introduced himself.

"It's nice to meet you, Jared."

"Likewise."

A comfortable silence existed between the two, Jared observing Steve carefully as his fingers stroked the pages of his book.

Steve took the opportunity to look closely at the boy. He was skinnier than a kid his age should be, but his bright green eyes were lively and his dark blond hair was well-kept. Occasionally, a flicker from the candles above would cause his glasses to create shadows on his cheeks. But, as soon as the shadows came, they were gone and replaced with his bright expression.

"Are you new to Whammy's? You seem a little old to be a student here. Or are you a volunteer?"

Steve pondered the question, and the library suddenly seemed more empty. He had only been here a short while, but already the kids were growing on him. Perhaps it was the sentiment that they were more intelligent than he was, and they seemed much more mature than the adults he had met (ie. Tony). He answered after a few moments' pause.

"I don't officially work here but... I could volunteer every once in a while."

Jared's face lit up. "Really? That's great! All the adults here are so stuffy. They lock me out of the library when all I really want to do is read. None of them listen to me when I talk about my books, except you."

Steve gave Jared a smile. "I'm glad you are happy."

Jared smiled back, gave Steve a short hug, and then turned back to _Don Quixote_, immediately becoming enraptured in the pages.

Steve felt a warm feeling bubble up in his chest as he smiled and stood up slowly, weaving his way through the bookshelves until he ended up back to the open space where the piano was located. Light had stopped playing momentarily, and Steve realized that Light's pause was what was making the library seem more cavernous than before.

Light was staring silently at the music before him, his long fingers ghosting the ivory keys in an imitation of playing. This continued for another few minutes before Light stopped, took a breath, and started. He only made the slightest of mistakes every once in a while, and, despite that, the music was delicate and dark. It surrounded Steve and gave him chills down his spine.

Once the song was finished, Steve stood, as if in suspended animation, oblivious to Light turning towards him and fixing him with a curious, auburn stare.

"Mr. Rogers?" Light asked lightly, causing Steve to jump back into reality. _I've been spacing out so much lately... probably just from blood loss._

"I apologize, I was just thinking," Steve said weakly. Light's emotionless face didn't change, but something in his chestnut eyes grew softer.

"You should be resting," he chided gently.

"It's fine," protested Steve. "I heal faster than the average person, so..." he trailed off.

"Why?" Light asked.

Steve hesitated. "...I don't get hurt easily...," he said sheepishly. He didn't know how to explain it.

"That's fine," Light said politely.

"Um, Light?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a phone I can use?" Steve asked. Tony and the others were probably having an aneurysm by now.

"There's one in the hallway, three doors down," Light answered. Steve nodded in thanks and turned to leave the room, before he heard Light's voice add, "Be careful of what you say, Mr. Rogers. The conversation is recorded."

* * *

The phone's ring permeated the silence at Stark Tower. Tony immediately jumped up to get it. He was sick with worry. He had already eaten three bags of pretzels and was working on his fourth, for goodness' sake!

"Hello?" he answered as soon as he picked up the receiver.

"_Tony?_" Steve's voice answered from the other side.

"Steve! Do you realize how worried we are about you? Tasha and Clint left an hour ago to scour the city again, Thor is actually _depressed_, Bruce is on the verge of hulking out any moment now, and I had to deal with my A.I getting hacked and a rude kid selling pretzels! I'm a wreck!"

The remaining Avengers got up immediately and crowded over by the phone as soon as they heard it was Steve. Tony pressed the speaker-mode button as Steve answered.

"_I'm sorry, Tony. Some of the Chitauri got me pretty bad, and I fell into the forest. I couldn't move because of how I landed._"

"Are you still there?" asked Bruce.

"_No. I was about to be attacked by coyotes, but a boy saved me and fixed me up at the orphanage he lives at._"

"Orphanage?!" Tony said, in surprise. Clint and Natasha entered the room, looking completely beat from their search. Once they saw the others huddling around the phone, they joined them. "Are there benches by it?"

"_I don't know. I was unconscious when he brought me here._"

"Who is 'he'?" asked Natasha.

"_Light. He's the boy who saved me. You guys won't believe how smart these children are. Light plays the piano and there's another boy, Jared, who knows three languages and is working on a fourth._" Steve's voice sounded excited to share the news.

"Which orphanage is it?"

"_Whammy's House_," Steve answered.

Tony looked at the others as he responded. "We're coming to get you. See you in a bit." He hung up abruptly and picked up his jacket. "JARVIS, tell me the directions to Whammy's House."

"Yes, sir."


End file.
